ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Stylistic Devices And Argumentative Strategies In Public Discourse

• by: Lilit Brutian - Yerevan State University, Armenia

As the famous discourse analyst Norman Fairclough states, “it is time social theorists and researchers delivered on their promissory notes about the importance of language and discourse in contemporary social life” (Fairclough 2003, p.204).

The aim of the paper is to analyse the use of the major stylistic devices and argumentative strategies in public discourse, in particular, to reveal the frequency of their use in the given genre of speech. The research questions are: a) whether the use of stylistic devices and argumentative strategies is determined by the subject of the speech, b) whether it is determined by gender differences, c) whether there are typical “male” and “female” devices and strategies. As the material for investigation was taken “Contemporary American Speeches” (Johannesen 2000). Following I. Galperin’s idea that “the necessary data can be obtained by means of an objective statistical count based on a large number of texts” (Galperin 1991, p.332), we have used the methods of statistical and corpus-based analyses, as well as the method of comparative analysis.

First, a general statistical and comparative analysis has been made. The total number of speeches is 53, among them 34 speeches belong to males, whereas 19 speeches to females, that is 63 percent of speeches belongs to males vs 37 percent of female speeches. According to the subject of speech, the distribution of the figures is as follows:
concerns of minorities: 9/7m, 2f [i]
military and foreign policy: 8/7m, 1 f
technology and the environment : 8/6m, 2f
economic and social issues: 7/6m, 1f
the political process: 7/4m, 3f
contemporary morals and value: 7/3m, 4f
concerns of women: 7/1m, 6f. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Nobel Diplomacy: The Rhetoric Of The Obama Administration

• by: Ann E. Burnette & Wayne L. Kraemer - Texas State University, San Marcos

1. Introduction
When the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded US President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009, it declared that Obama had “created a new climate in international politics” (Norwegian Nobel Committee 2009). In his acceptance speech, Obama said, “my administration has worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek” (Obama 2009). This paper analyzes the National Security Strategy (NSS) released by the Obama administration on May 27, 2010, to evaluate the rhetorical constructs, assumptions, and arguments that define this “new era of engagement.”

Since 1986, every US president has been required to present Congress with an annual strategic plan. The NSS issued by Obama in May 2010 is the first strategy statement prepared for Congress during Obama’s presidency. The Obama administration is not unusual in its lax adherence to the law; President George. W. Bush released only two national security strategies (in 2002 and 2006) during his administration. The purpose of the national security strategy is “to set administration priorities inside the government and communicate them to Congress, the American people and the world” (DeYoung 2010). The Obama administration also included an introductory letter authored by the president as part of the NSS.

2. The rhetoric of imperial righteousness
The NSS is a crucial rhetorical text of the Obama administration. In it, the president frames the purposes and strategies of American foreign policy. Therefore, it is important to analyze the rhetoric of the NSS. Because the US president is the most significant rhetorical figure in American political discourse, the language that the president uses to characterize foreign policy strongly influences the terms of the debate on American foreign policy (Tulis 1987; Dow 1989; Stuckey 1995; Cole 1996; Zarefsky 2004; Edwards 2009). Edwards and Valenzano (2007) contend that a president’s foreign policy rhetoric “supplies American foreign policy with a distinct direction in international affairs” (p. 303). As Drinan (1972) notes, “Language is not merely the way we express our foreign policy; language is our foreign policy” (p. 279). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Argument From Legislative Silence

• by: Damiano Canale & Giovanni Tuzet - Bocconi University, Milan

1. Inferring the Intention
According to the argument from legislative intention, a judicial decision is justified if it is based on the law-maker’s intention. In particular, on the basis of this argument, the interpretation of a statute should express the law that the legislature intended to make. But what if the legislature is silent on a certain matter or case? What can be inferred from the silence of the legislature? Are there any intentions that can be inferred from it? As we will show, the argument from legislative silence is ambiguous and we need to specify the conditions under which its different uses are justified. Before doing this, however, we need to recall some features of the more general argument from legislative intention.

Inferring the legislative intent is considered a reasonable and politically sound requirement on judicial interpretation and decision-making, especially in the systems governed by the principles of separation of powers and legislative supremacy (Goldsworthy 2005; Naffine, Owens & Williams 2001). Politically speaking, it is required by the democratic principle. More in general, it can be derived from the reasons to comply with legal authorities and from the very idea of legislative power (Raz 1996, p. 258; Marmor 2001, p. 90). However, the argument from legislative intention faces several theoretical and practical problems. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Algorithms And Arguments: The Foundational Role Of The ATAI-Question

• by: Paola Cantù -Centre d'Epistémologie et Ergologie Comparative, Université de Provence, France & Italo Testa - Dipartimento di Filosofia, Università di Parma, Italy

1. Introduction
Argumentation theory underwent a significant development in the Fifties and Sixties: its revival is usually connected to Perelman’s criticism of formal logic and the development of informal logic. Interestingly enough it was during this period that Artificial Intelligence was developed, which defended the following thesis (from now on referred to as the AI-thesis): human reasoning can be emulated by machines. The paper suggests a reconstruction of the opposition between formal and informal logic as a move against a premise of an argument for the AI-thesis, and suggests making a distinction between a broad and a narrow notion of algorithm that might be used to reformulate the question as a foundational problem for argumentation theory.

The paper starts by the analysis of an argument in favor of the AI-thesis (from now on referred to as the AI-argument), distinguishing three premises that support the conclusion (§ 2). We suggest that the interpretation of informal logic as strictly opposed to formal logic might be interestingly analyzed as a move in a strategy to refute the AI-thesis by attacking a premise of the argument: the possibility of expressing arguments by means of algorithms. We are not thereby suggesting that this move was explicitly made by argumentation theorists; nonetheless this counterfactual reconstruction might shed some light on the reasons that opposed argumentation theorists and AI-scholars. In particular, we suggest that the opposition between a formal and an informal approach need not be interpreted only as a way to deal with the peculiarities of ordinary language (analytic philosophy of language answered a similar need without renouncing formal tools, even if only fragments of the natural languages could be formalized), but might also be considered as a way to distinguish the domain of human argumentative rationality from the domain of mechanical computation. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Emotional Arguments, Personality Theory, And Conflict Resolution

• by: Linda Carozza - York University

1. Introduction
In The Emotional mode of argumentation: descriptive, people-centered, and process-oriented I compile and discuss different types of emotional arguments that have been introduced in existing literature and demonstrate how they contribute to the overall goals of various argumentative dialogues. Following Hample, a fundamental belief which grounds this work is that, “people cannot reason without emotion and rarely experience emotion without reason. They are partners, not competitors” (2005, p. 127). I do this in an effort to push the argumentation community to acknowledge that emotional arguments can be credible sources of argument, and more importantly that they can help argumentation practitioners better understand, facilitate, or assess emotional arguments. Whether practitioners are analysts performing empirical studies of emotional arguments, professionals who deal with arguments continually as part and parcel to their work, or individuals confronting emotional arguments, that project is aimed chiefly at providing theoretical insights. It also begins to introduce practical tools that can help us with emotional arguments. In this paper, I summarize parts of a chapter on emotion, to demonstrate what is encapsulated by my notion of an emotional argument. This is entirely descriptive, and thus has no elements of normative analysis. Then, I discuss personality theories and connect them with emotional arguments. Finally, I introduce a family mediation case scenario, articulate some of its emotional arguments and discuss how the input of personality theory can help facilitate resolution of those arguments present. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Latin Cross As War Memorial And The Genesis Of Legal Argument: Interpreting Commemorative Symbolism In Salazar V. Buono

• by: M. Kelly Carr - University of Baltimore, Amanda Reid Payne - Florida Coastal School of Law & Marilyn J. Young - The Florida State University

In 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), a private organization, erected a Latin cross[i] on federal land in the Mojave Desert to memorialize the veterans of World War I.[ii] The Mojave Cross is located in the Mojave National Preserve, on land known as Sunrise Rock.[iii] The presence of the cross first became an issue in 1999, when the Park Service denied a request from a Utah man to add a Buddhist shrine to the land near the cross. Subsequently, in 2001, Frank Buono, a former Park Service employee, filed suit against the Park Service alleging the cross violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which sets parameters regarding the relationship between government and religion.[iv]

In 2002, the lower (trial) court found for Buono and ordered the Park Service to remove the Mojave Cross. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Ninth Circuit) agreed with the lower court, affirming the conclusion that “the presence of the cross on federal land conveys a message of endorsement of religion,” and permanently enjoined the government from maintaining the cross on federal land (Buono v. Norton, 2004). The Park Service prepared to remove it. Meanwhile, in 2001, the U.S. Congress prohibited the use of federal funds to remove the cross (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001). Then, in 2002, the Mojave Cross was designated a national memorial (Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2002).[v]  Congress again prohibited the use of federal funds to remove the cross (Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2003). And, finally, Congress transferred one acre of land, on which the Mojave Cross sits, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars with the requirement that if it ceased to be a war memorial the land would revert to the federal government (Pub. L. No. 108-87, 2003).[vi] The Ninth Circuit concluded that this last move was merely an attempt to circumvent the constitutional violation and thus stopped the transfer (Buono v. Kempthorne, 2007). The Department of Justice appealed this latter decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the government would have to tear down a “memorial.”[vii] The VFW filed an amicus brief arguing that if the Ninth Circuit’s opinion were to be affirmed, memorials in national cemeteries would have to be removed, including the Argonne Cross and the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice at the Arlington National Cemetery (Veterans of Foreign Wars et al., 2009). In contrast, the Jewish War Veterans of the United States filed an amicus brief arguing that the Mojave Cross is “a profoundly religious Christian symbol,” rather than a universal commemorative symbol of war dead, and that the federal government’s actions toward the cross and adjoining land underscores, rather than remedies, its endorsement of that religious symbol (2009, p. 5). Read more